Pacifica’s Mascarenas Ready to Answer the Call

Toni Mascarenas, answering questions from interviewers the last four years, has developed a candid and direct approach toward the media. She doesn’t usually mince words.

What have you been most embarrassed by as a softball player?

“We didn’t perform as well as we should have the past few years and choked when it came down to the wire,” she responds.

Are you worried about that happening again?

“No, not this year, because going into this year, I told myself I wasn’t going to let it happen.”

Mascarenas, described by some area softball coaches as the county’s toughest out and best defensive player, plays her final game for Pacifica on Saturday.

After disappointing losses in the semifinals as a freshman and quarterfinals the last two years, Mascarenas and the Mariners (29-1-1), ranked No. 1 in the nation by the National Fastpitch Coaches Assn., play Glendora St. Lucy’s (25-7) at 4:30 p.m. at Lakewood’s Mayfair Park for the Southern Section Division III title. It’s Pacifica’s first championship game appearance, Mascarenas’ last stop before an all-star game next week and departure for Arizona to play for the two-time defending NCAA champions.

“We have a pretty good reputation, and we had that before she got here, but Toni got us to the next level ranking-wise, media-wise, all the little things that put your team on the map,” Pacifica Coach Rob Weil said. “That’s all attributed to Toni and Amanda [Freed] and kids like that, but it starts with Toni.”

Beginning with Mascarenas’ freshman year, Pacifica ended each season ranked third, first, third and first in Orange County. The year before Mascarenas arrived, Pacifica was unranked.

She was a Times Orange County all-county first-team player her first three years, and did nothing to prevent her from making it four for four this season.

She is batting .404 with 20 RBIs and has scored 24 runs. Although she has given way to Freed as Pacifica’s primary pitcher, Mascarenas still has some impressive numbers: 9-1 with a 0.36 earned-run average and 58 strikeouts in 58 innings.

Her reduced pitching time is a way to take one for the team, which is stronger with Mascarenas at third base and Freed pitching.

Still, someone so competitive doesn’t walk away without an emotional tug.

“I feel I’ve been a team player, but I feel I deserve to be in the circle--but I’m not taking anything away from Amanda,” Mascarenas said. “It’s a disappointment for myself because it’s my senior year. I wanted to show everybody what I was about [as a pitcher] before I left for college. I don’t feel like I got the opportunity. I’ll just have to wait until college to show everybody what I’m made of.”

Some of Mascarenas’ numbers are pretty telling. Her walks/hits to innings-pitched ratio is 0.45; only Freed, Mater Dei’s Tia Bollinger and St. Margaret’s Abbey Arnold have lower totals.

This decade, she is perhaps the best position player to never be recognized as a player of the year outside her league.

“She is one of the premier players to ever play in Orange County, but she was in the wrong place at the wrong time for an award like that,” Weil said.

“It’s tough to describe her because she means everything to this program--leadership, discipline, role model, intensity that the other kids feed off. She leads by example.

“All around, she’s the best player that has ever come out of Pacifica, and that’s saying a lot. She’s one of the top to come out of the county in a lot of years. She can do it all. She’s phenomenal.”

About that, there’s no question.